Behold, it's the last Low Five for 2007! Though it wasn't a good year for Hollywood, it only takes the stack of games I have yet to finish to remind me that games, overall, appear to be getting better. I might blog about this separately sometime, but I have no doubt that it's the monetary risk involved in making a big splash on Xbox 360 or PS3 that's reducing the number of clear duds on these two consoles -- and appear to be increasing them on the cheaper-to-develop-for Wii and DS. But the bad games for the Nintendo consoles are luckily easy enough to identify for you and me (though mom and junior may have a harder time making the connection between cartoon license and crappy game). That said, I'm proud to say that no single bad game made my list this week. What I do have, is this:

Snake's Camo in MGS4 I've been meaning to say this for a while: I hate the camo effect shown in the demos of Metal Gear Solid 4. I dig the concept of Snake blending in with his environments through the use of a hi-tech suit, but the way this is solved visually in the demos we've seen so far has left me cold. For example:

The statue part is fine, but when Snake is hiding in front of a wall or on the floor, the texture mapping should try to duplicate the background, not just super-impose a static texture as shown. There have been tests using cameras and projection to produce crude invisibility cloaks for many years (see this article from 2003). It's time Snake and Kojima tried a little harder.

Most Addictive Game Fueled by Dew I know the Spike Videogame Awards aired a few weeks back, but I just saw Halo 3 sitting in my drawer and was reminded that 1) I still need to play it, 2) it won the award for "Most Addictive Game Fueled by Dew." As nice as it is that Spike is attempting to do its part in elevating gaming to a hobby that's mentioned in the same breath as reading, watching movies, and petting kittens, the VGAs have a long way to go. Having game critics from magazines and websites (including some of ours) act as an awards panel is a great first step, but it's all for naught when you then layer shategories such as "Hottest Newcomer" -- awarded to Kristen Bell of Veronica Mars and Heroes fame -- and "Most Addictive Game Fueled by Dew" on top.

Bell is just fine in her TV shows, but we're to believe she won for reading those couple of lines during the boring modern day sequences of Assassin's Creed? Why not just give her the "Cute Girl Who Showed Up" award instead of trying to come up with some sort of gaming-related justification? The category "Most Addictive Game Fueled by Dew" has been picked apart by many a gamer as being ludicrous, but I think it's a notable example of what happens when marketing overwhelms a product rather than supporting it. I imagine this is how it went: sales guy asks show creators: "Do you have a category that relates to fuel, caffeine, citrus, or energy?" Show creators: "No, but how about 'Most Addictive Game'?" Sales guy: "Perfect. Mountain Dew would like to sponsor the award, so we need to mention the sponsor in the name." "OK, how about: Most Addictive Game Fueled by Dew?"

Now, without the "fueled by Dew" part, the category is actually pretty innocuous, especially when you consider that the nominees include Guitar Hero III and Wii Sports; two very addictive games. Now, those choices are all very mainstream, as in "I only know 20 games" mainstream (you can't say addictive without mentioning Picross, folks!), but you really can't argue with any of the picks. The problem is that Halo 3 won -- I assume, by legitimate vote. The innocuous "fueled by Dew" suddenly takes a turn toward the, uhh, ocuous, considering that Pepsi USA produced a Halo 3-branded limited edition Dew to piggyback on Master Chief's wild ride. I'm sure there isn't a gamer ou

Ever notice how there's sometimes too much content on IGN? Depending on who you are, you either couldn't care less that we posted a trailer for the second Narnia movie, or you've been waiting with bated breath to see how Walden and Disney would bring Caspian to life (hey, where the hell is Reepicheep?). The problem is, with limited space and time, it's sometimes tough to find the content that you're really into.

With that in mind, we're testing a subtle new feature on our IGN Movies front page. Scroll down and click the "My Updates" tab in the latest updates area. In addition to showing you updates for titles you added to our Club.IGN lists (favorites, collection, wishlist, alerts, etc.), it also gives you updates for titles you've clicked on in the past. If the latter brings up stuff you're not really into, just click the "Activity" tag next to the update and remove it.

Give it a try. We'll be releasing this feature more widely on the other channels after we've let you guys test it out for a few days.

Oh, and watch the exclusive debut of the Hellboy II: The Golden Army trailer on IGN Movies as well:

It's about time! With no HD release of the Lord of the Rings trilogy on the horizon, I was starting to suffer from Tolkien withdrawal...

While calming my fears that McKellen and other LotR cast members would be too old to shoot The Hobbit once the studios and PJ had settled their differences, the announcement raises a lot of questions. Who will direct? Will original cast members return? And like the Lord of the Rings, these hobbit films will be shot at the same time. The question is, why two movies?

Now, out of all of Tolkien's works, The Hobbit seems perfect for a movie adaptation. It's not too long, got some tense cinematic sequences (barrel ride, Gollum's riddles, spiders, trolls, giant effing dragon) and could be done in a PJ-sized (three hours+) film.

Unlike LotR, it doesn't have any clean breaks. Unless the writers fill in a lot of gaps, you can't easily tell the Gollum and Smaug stories separately. So what's with the second film? Is the term "hobbit movies" loosely used to mean Tolkien films? Or are they planning to take pieces from The Silmarillion and Children of Hurin and cobble together another Hobbit story? As exhaustive as Tolkien's universe is, there are really not that many hobbit stories to tell, so I've got to think the producers are planning to expand on The Hobbit and somehow split it in two.

I'm looking forward to more news -- in the meantime, I'm just happy that the project has gotten unstuck. If someone could also get on pushing ahead with "Song of Ice and Fire" and getting T. H. White's "The Once and Future King" the movie adaptation it deserves, then my fantasy needs are getting closer to being fulfilled.

If my last post helped quiet down your inner Mulder, then how about some guaranteed not-paid-for product endorsements? Yes, it's time for another High Five!

Star Wars Books With all that talk about movies, games, comics, TV shows, gear, and music, it's easy to forget mentioning the printed word. I'm currently reading a new Folio compilation of Daphne Du Maurier's short stories (including "The Birds," and the overdue-for-a-new-movie mystery "Don't Look Back"), but with Christmas around the corner, I actually wanted to recommend something a little more befitting the young games and movie enthusiast. My love for Star Wars goes all the way back to my childhood and even though the franchise has lost some of its sparkle, it just takes a beeping thermal detonator replica or a sinking X-Wing Dagobah package at Target to make me feel the Force again. If you're looking for a great gift for a Star Wars geek, check these:

The Star Wars Vault from Harper Collins. If you're comics fan, you might have seen the publisher's Marvel Vault. This heavy tome came out about a month ago and collects thirty years of behind-the-scenes material from the LucasFilm archives. Much like similar "collection" books, like the Illustrated 1776 or The Audrey Hepburn Treasures (Don't judge me! I gave that to my mom!), it's packed with inserts, fold-outs and envelopes with loose-leaf sketches, flyers, a cel replica, and even an iron-on t-shirt transfer. It's all lovingly assembled and documented, not to mention packaged up in a sturdy book with a cool-looking slip-cover.

The MSRP for this sucker is $85 -- but you'll find it for much cheaper if you have an internet connection and know how to spell the name of Brazil's largest river.

If that's still too much, how about this one:

Star Wars: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy by Matthew Reinhart. There's been a pop-up book revival in the last few years mainly thanks to the elaborately constructed books by Sabuda and Reinhart, so it was only a matter of time until these guys would leave the classic fairytales and toothy creatures behind in favor of modern pop culture items. While we may have to wait a few years more to get a pop-up Nintendo Classics or Halo Trilogy book, Star Wars fans will definitely dig Reinhart's Guide to the Galaxy. The fragile but ingeniously thought-out book comes complete with fold-out spreads featuring an AT-AT, Rancor, Millennium Falcon, the cantina, R2 and C3-PO, and an ominous Darth Vader face (with Crispy-Ani behind it). But the real attraction are the numerous mini fold-outs that range from the Death Star blasting Alderaan to Luke and Darth crossing blades ? and the blades even light up.

You can find it for $20 in most book stores or online.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare The last two months have been very busy, so unfortunately I haven't been able to write as much I'd like about the games that have truly impressed me so far this year. Call of Duty 4 is a fantastic title. As I was still finishing up a few other titles on Wii, 360, and even PS2, I had CoD4 sitting in a drawer for a few weeks simply because I was more in the mood for new experiences than revisiting the now familiar world of war. I should've played it earlier. After blasting through the single-player game, I have to say that CoD4 is a much more unique experience than expected. Nothing against Treyarch who jumped in to develop the third Call of Duty, but it was CoD2's intensity that lured many of us away from other action game choices to pick up the sequel. Although #3 sported impressive visuals and attempted to duplicate the dazzling scripted events and feel